Description
"A genius called Daryl Runswick" Sir Andrew Davis
"A brilliant musician, funny, gentle, uncompromising – just a beautiful person." Bob Chilcott
Two major works from either end of Runswick's career are highlighted on this CD. Following in the tradition of Mozart, the soloist in Concerto for Piano and Nine Instruments (2017) not only plays from a notated score but also improvises. The concerto is built upon Runswick's fractal technique: every detail of the musical texture is constructed from a single five-note germ. This CD provides the live recording from the world premiere performance at Cadogan Hall in June 2017, when Runswick celebrated his 70th Birthday at a Gala Concert.
Variations for String Orchestra (1980) is dedicated to several of Runswick's friends including the cellist Christopher van Kampen, who died in 1997. In contrast, the piano work Gentle Do Not Care to Know ... (1998), whose title is taken from 'A Summer Night' by W H Auden, a poem full of foreboding of the onset of war, is dedicated to Runswick's father. Runswick describes how the composition process mirrored Stravinsky's comment, "I heard and I wrote what I heard". Strikingly, despite the diversity of the works included on this CD, and the wide timespan over which they were written, all share elements of the same melody, as Runswick explains in the liner notes.